Call For Papers

The International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) is the premier venue for presenting fundamental research, innovative technology, and applications concerning semantics, data, and the Web. It is the most important international venue to discuss and present latest advances and applications of the semantic Web, knowledge graphs, linked data, ontologies and artificial intelligence (AI) on the Web.

ISWC attracts a large number of high quality submissions every year and participants from both industry and academia. ISWC brings together researchers from different areas, such as artificial intelligence, databases, natural language processing, information systems, human computer interaction, information retrieval, web science, etc., who investigate, develop and use novel methods and technologies for accessing, interpreting and using information on the Web in a more effective way.

* Highlights
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* Research, In-use and Resource tracks: submission of the same work to multiple tracks is not allowed and may result in a rejection of the work across all tracks without a review. Before submitting, authors are asked to consult the calls of the other tracks featured at ISWC 2019 and to choose the track that best suits their contribution. Please consult the following page as well when deciding to which track to submit: https://iswc2019.semanticweb.org/paper-features-per-track/
* Research track: papers submitted to the research track will be subject to **double blind** peer review.
* Research track: a reproducibility certification with a dedicated review board will be proposed to the accepted research track papers that include a significant experimental evaluation.
* Doctoral Consortium: papers submitted to the doctoral consortium will be subject to **double blind** peer review.

1. Call for Research papers
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In this track of ISWC 2019, we are looking for novel and significant research contributions addressing theoretical, analytical and empirical aspects of the Semantic Web. While we welcome work that relates to the W3C Semantic Web recommendations (e.g., RDF, OWL, SPARQL, etc.), we also encourage contributions to research at the intersection of Semantic Web and other scientific disciplines. Submissions to the research track should describe original, significant, and replicable research on the Semantic Web. All papers must include method evaluations that are rigorous, repeatable and reproducible. This will be one of the key paper reviewing criteria. We also strongly encourage papers that provide material such as data sets, source code, queries used to evaluate their approach, and/or live deployments. To comply with the double blind review policy we encourage the usage of non-personal storage spaces or the additional material facility available at submission time.

The adoption of Semantic Web technologies has accelerated in recent years, where they are now deployed in a variety of real-world settings at a variety of scales. The In-Use Track at ISWC 2019 continues the tradition of demonstrating and learning from the increasing adoption of Semantic Web technologies by providing a forum for the community to explore the benefits and challenges of applying such technologies in concrete, practical use cases, beyond the research communities from which they originate, in contexts ranging from industry to government and science.

The In-Use Track thus seeks submissions describing applied and validated solutions such as software tools, systems or architectures that benefit from the use of Semantic Web technologies (including, but not limited to, technologies based on the Semantic Web standards). Importantly, submitted papers should provide convincing evidence of the use of the proposed application or tool by the target user group, preferably outside the group that conducted the development and, more broadly, outside the Semantic Web research community. A main focus of the submissions should be on the benefits of Semantic Web technologies for the intended use case, as well as (if relevant) the added challenges they introduce.

We welcome submissions that demonstrate the use of Semantic Web technologies such as those mentioned in the Call for Papers of the Research Track, and additionally cover one or more of the following topics:
* Applications in domain-specific areas (e.g., libraries, cultural heritage, healthcare, life sciences, engineering, smart manufacturing, smart cities, open government)
* Description and analysis of concrete and novel problems or use cases in a specific domain in which Semantic Web technologies were applied (this should be part of submissions presenting a concrete application)
* Descriptions of how Semantic Web resources (ontologies, datasets, software, standards, etc) are being used in practice
* Assessment of the Semantic Web technologies from diverse points of view, such as:
- Usability and acceptance by stakeholder groups
- Uptake outside the Semantic Web research community
- Scalability of Semantic Web solutions and their large scale deployment
- Technical strengths and weaknesses especially in comparison with alternative technologies (e.g., database management systems, model-driven engineering)
- Costs and benefits of implementing, deploying, using, and managing Semantic Web technologies
- Risks and opportunities of using Semantic Web technologies in organizations with respect to their businesses and customers
* Lessons learned and best practices from deploying and using an application or service based on Semantic Web technologies
* Comparison of Semantic Web technologies with alternative approaches that use conventional or competing technologies

Further info: https://iswc2019.semanticweb.org/call-for-in-use-track-papers/

== Important Dates ==
Abstracts: April 3, 2019
Full papers: April 10, 2019

3. Call for Resource papers
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Resources are of paramount importance as they foster scientific advancement. For example, the DBpedia resource had a major influence on the Semantic Web community by enabling the Linked (Open) Data movement. Validating a research hypothesis or providing answers to a research question often goes together with developing new resources that support these achievements. Sharing resources is key to allow other researchers to compare new results, reproduce experimental settings and explore new lines of research, in accordance with the FAIR principles for scientific data management. Yet, resources themselves rarely get the same recognition as the scientific advances they facilitate.

The ISWC 2019 Resources Track aims to promote the sharing of resources including, but not restricted to: datasets, ontologies/vocabularies, ontology design patterns, evaluation benchmarks or methods, software tools/services, APIs and software frameworks, workflows, crowdsourcing task designs, protocols, methodologies and metrics, that contribute to the generation of novel scientific work. In particular, we encourage the sharing of such resources following best practices within the Semantic Web community. This track calls for contributions that provide a concise and clear description of a resource and its usage.

A typical Resource track paper has its focus set on reporting on one of the following categories of resources:
* Datasets produced
- to support specific evaluation tasks;
- to support novel research methods;
- by novel algorithms;
* Ontologies, vocabularies and ontology design patterns, with a focus on describing the modelling process and decisions underlying their creation;
* Benchmarking activities focusing on datasets and algorithms for comprehensible and systematic evaluation of existing and future systems;
* Reusable research prototypes / services supporting a given research hypothesis;
* Community-shared software frameworks that can be extended or adapted to support scientific study and experimentation;
* Scientific and experimental workflows used and reused in practical studies;
* Novel evaluation methodologies and metrics, and their demonstration in an experimental study.

Further info: https://iswc2019.semanticweb.org/call-for-resources-track-papers/

== Important Dates ==
Abstracts: April 3, 2019
Full papers: April 10, 2019

4. Call for Doctoral Consortium Papers
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The ISWC 2019 Doctoral Consortium will take place as part of the 18th International Semantic Web Conference in Auckland, New Zealand. This forum will provide PhD students an opportunity to share and develop their research ideas in a critical but supportive environment, to get feedback from mentors who are senior members of the Semantic Web research community, to explore issues related to academic and research careers, and to build relationships with other Semantic Web PhD students from around the world.

The Consortium aims to broaden the perspectives and to improve the research and communication skills of these students.

The Doctoral Consortium is intended for students who have a specific research proposal and some preliminary results, but who have sufficient time prior to completing their dissertation to benefit from the consortium experience. Generally, students in their second or third year of PhD will benefit the most from the Doctoral Consortium. In the Consortium, the students will present their proposals and get specific feedback and advice on how to improve their research plan.

All proposals submitted to the Doctoral Consortium will undergo a thorough reviewing process with a view to providing detailed and constructive feedback. The international program committee will select - submissions for presentation at the Doctoral Consortium.

Students with accepted submissions at the Doctoral Consortium will be eligible to apply for travel fellowships to offset some of the travel costs but they will be asked to attend the whole day of the Doctoral Consortium.

We ask the PhD students to submit a 12 page description of their PhD research proposal. All proposal have to be submitted electronically via the EasyChair conference submission System. The proposal text must have at least 8 sections (some can be very short), addressing each of the following questions:
1. Problem statement: What is the problem that you are addressing?
2. Relevancy: Why is the problem important? Who will benefit if you succeed? Who should care?
3. Related work: How have others attempted to address this problem? Why is the problem difficult?
4. Research question(s): What are the research questions that you plan to address?
5. Hypotheses: What hypotheses are related to your research questions? See Is This Really Science? The Semantic Webber’s Guide to Evaluating Research Contributions.
6. Preliminary results: Do you have any preliminary results that demonstrate that your approach is promising?
7. Approach: How are you planning to address your research questions and test your hypotheses? What is the main idea behind your approach? The key innovation?
8. Evaluation plan: How will you measure your success – faster/ more accurate/ less failures/ etc.? How do you plan to test your hypothesis? What will you measure? What will you compare to?
9. Reflections: Why do you think you will succeed where others failed? Provide an argument, based either on common knowledge or on evidence that you have accumulated, that your approach is likely to succeed.

Further info: https://iswc2019.semanticweb.org/call-for-doctoral-consortium-papers/

== Important Dates ==
Full papers due April 17, 2019
Notifications May 15, 2019
Camera-ready papers due June 14, 2019